Safety and the environment are the top factors that go into rules and regulations regarding drilling on U.S. federal lands. At least, that is what was stated by the U.S. Department of the Interior, for what it’s worth.
For a number of years, drilling on the U.S. Arctic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) – the area near Prudhoe Bay in far northern Alaska – has been a source of contention among many environmental groups, claiming that drilling in that area would cause irreparable damage to the ecology of the area, and that environmental argument has been what has stunted the amount of drilling in the area.
However, drilling itself can be a very dangerous profession for those who work on the oil fields, and safety could also be deemed a reason for preventing the level of exploratory drilling that has taken place in the area – not just the work itself, but also being in a part of the world that have a level of extreme cold that is hard to fathom.
Last year, the Interior Department passed final rules of exploratory drilling on the OCS, as companies continue to search for more rich oil deposits in the area. Interior claims that these rules are supposed to balance safety concerns for workers and those on these sites and the welfare of the environmental and maritime concerns in the area, not to mention those of the native Alaskas who live in the region and have their traditions and cultural norms that invovle the land where the exploration is tkaing place.
The new rule is quite specific, asit applies to the exploratory drilling that occurs on floating vessels in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas along the OCS. Each vessel is expected to have protocols in place to address oil spills, from prevention to containment and response in order to mitigate environmental damage to the marine ecology. There are also some standards of transport, and emergency response that is specific to the Arctic region, taking into account the ice cover, the ecology and the water, as well as developing sound policies of safe drilling operations.
Brian Salerno, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said that these rules are designed to help oil companies that are doing exploratory work to keep safety in mind in terms of reducing and mitigating risks to workers on the vessels, as well as accounting for the sensitive north Alaskan ecology.
More information about this rule can be found at this link.